


Rosencrantz & Guildenstern On the Seven Seas

by breed (weatherby)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-09
Updated: 2009-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:09:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatherby/pseuds/breed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Hogwarts written pre-HBP.  Seamus and Dean and life going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rosencrantz & Guildenstern On the Seven Seas

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written prior to Half-Blood Prince.

When the train dumps them at King's Cross it turns out that the world still does, in fact, exist, and what's more most of it doesn't have the faintest inkling that anything has changed. It's a bit like the first time Seamus saw people after he lost his virginity, or the time Harry came into the dormitory complaining about Quidditch when Seamus was in the midst of a particularly cold and frightening row with Dean. It's impossible to believe that people can still be talking about the most inane things, that they can't just look at him and know what's happened.

"Oh, and I found this charming little bait shop down by the Silversteins' that uses cheese instead of worms, apparently it's all the rage," says Dean's mum. Seamus, who has been rivalling Ron in height for the past two years, feels small.

"Mum, I haven't even got my trunk -" Dean struggles to wedge his trunk out the compartment door, where it's got stuck at an odd angle. "- and you're nattering on about cheese. . . ."

"Well, I'm just excited to see you!" Mrs Thomas says. "Dad thought he'd take you fishing at the weekend. Do you eat fish, Seamus?"

Seamus balances his trunk under his right hand and wipes the left one on his trousers. "Yeah, I do."

"Oh, good. You know, some people are so picky. You've got some who won't eat seafood at all, some who'll only eat tuna, some who'll only eat salmon. Honestly, who can keep track? Dean, would you just -" Mrs Thomas pushes Dean aside, gives the trunk a good yank, and it comes neatly out. "Really, Dean, it's not that difficult -"

"See you, Seamus!"

Seamus turns to see Lisa Turpin waving to him from across the platform. He grins and waves back just before she's enveloped in a worried hug by her parents. Although they've done a credible job in dressing as Muggles, he doesn't need to ask to know that they're a witch and a wizard. Seamus knows he will not see Lisa Turpin again.

"Well, I think that's all. Shall we?"

The ride to Dean's house is a short one. Mrs Thomas drives a minivan, big and boxy. Seamus and Dean sit in the very back seat, Seamus at the window and Dean at his side rubbing the back of one finger against the outside of Seamus's thigh. Seamus pretends to watch the scenery from the window. Any moment now, Mrs Thomas will ask Seamus how his year was, as she does every time he visits, and he will have nothing to say. He is waiting for it even more than he is waiting for the next fortnight of summer he will spend at Dean's house.

"Mum, how about pulling off and letting me drive?" Dean says, and Seamus knows now that Mrs Thomas will never ask.

"You are completely out of your mind if you think I'm letting you drive my car," she says, glancing up at them in her mirror. "You're the worst driver I've ever met. I'm ashamed to call you my son."

"Aren't you exaggerating?" Dean plucks Seamus's hand from his lap and starts drawing lines on Seamus's wrist with his fingers. "I park like a pro."

"That's only when the car park is empty. I don't dare let you try it if there's even one car in the way. Have you seen him drive, Seamus?"

"No, ma'am," Seamus says. "I thank God every day." He is pleased when Mrs Thomas laughs.

"Vultures," Dean says with disgust. "No one appreciates me."

"Maybe we'll get you a new bike," Mrs Thomas says, pulling into the Thomas' driveway. "With a basket."

Seamus does not point out that Dean can Apparate. It would seem out of place, here in the back of a minivan with footballs and ballet shoes on the floor. Each year when Seamus visits the Thomases during the summer holidays, it feels like magic no longer exists, like they were kidding themselves at playing some game and now it is done. It is not different, so far, now that they have left Hogwarts for good.

Once they have got their trunks from the car and the house's back door opened, a burst of dialogue greets them from the television in the kitchen. No one is sitting there, so it is likely that one of Dean's siblings has left it on and forgotten about it. Dean's eldest sister--Dean's stepfather's daughter from his previous marriage--is in her twenties, married and living in Brighton. After that is a brother, Adam, who is fifteen and enrolled at Eton, a thirteen-year-old brother called Byron, and the youngest, a sister called Noelle who is just ten. Seamus is an only child.

"That's great," Mrs Thomas says, switching the television off. "Let's just leave the television on all the time."

"Don't yell at me," says Dean. "If I left that on, I think there's a bigger problem in you just noticing now."

"Go unpack your trunk and put your dirty clothes in the laundry. You too, Mr Finnigan. I'm not sending you back to your mother with a smelly trunk full of crusty clothes."

The staircase in Dean's house is narrow and a pain when you are trying to drag a trunk up it. Twice, Dean nearly lets his fall backwards into Seamus. The trunks take up more room than they should in Dean's bedroom, and when Adam comes back from Eton they will be shoved under the cot they set up for Seamus.

"It's weird," Seamus says.

"I know," says Dean, sniffing a shirt. "It's like nothing happened at all. But it's better. Life goes on. This can do without washing for another week."

Seamus doesn't want life to go on. Seamus wants to dwell. He doesn't say this. Instead, he starts piling his dirty socks on Adam's bed.

Supper is a messy, busy meal, with Noelle sitting far too close to Seamus and trying to tell him about her ballet lessons. Every so often, Dean interrupts to tell Noelle that Seamus snores in his sleep, or that he once blew up a frog, but Noelle doesn't seem to mind these things, and offers to show him some of her ballet during his visit. Byron laughs at Noelle and Mrs Thomas scolds Byron and Dean tells Noelle that Seamus doesn't like football and Seamus says nothing for most of the whole meal and no one seems to notice. It is nice, being able to be quiet in a way that doesn't seem piercing and obvious, and it is nicer still when everyone around you is noisy.

Mr Thomas comes home in the midst of it.

"Hm," says Mr Thomas, putting his briefcase in the cupboard. "This boy looks familiar. Why didn't you tell me we had another child? Seamus Finnigan, don't your parents ever miss you?"

Seamus knows that Dean's father is kidding, but he can't help wondering if he complains of Seamus's yearly visits when they've ended. "They're on holiday at me grandparents' on me da's side." He does not mention that he isn't welcome to visit them himself, being born wrong in more ways than one. He is prepared to lie about how fantastic his grandparents are.

"Not _The Muggles_," Mr Thomas says, with a look of fake surprise. "I couldn't stand for that, myself. What's on the telly?"

"You Muggles are bad news," Dean says, grinning. "You're the worst of them."

"I agree completely," Mr Thomas says. "I'm a scoundrel."

"What's a scoundrel?" asks Noelle.

"You are," says Byron, and Mrs Thomas whacks him on the back of the head with a dish towel. "Well, she is!"

No one has joked around at Hogwarts in ages. Dean slips back into the pattern of it far better than Seamus, who is inclined just to observe and enjoy it. But then, Dean probably doesn't think about it at all; Seamus is the only one who notices these things in a strange, overly-conscious way. He wonders which way is better.

That night, Seamus dreams of dishrags dancing ballet instead of skulls and snakes.

As it turns out, Mr Thomas hates fishing, and he never intended to take Dean and Seamus at all. He has only told Mrs Thomas this, because Mrs Thomas feels better when she knows that everyone has activities planned. When the weekend rolls around, Mr Thomas drives Dean and Seamus to a lake anyway, because Dean actually does like fishing and raises a fuss when Mr Thomas tries to convince them to go somewhere else.

"Mum promised fishing," says Dean, "and now you're stuck with it."

They pack a couple of fishing poles and a lunch, and Mr Thomas pays to rent a boat. Seamus and Dean are the only ones on it, though, because Mr Thomas still hates fishing, no matter how much Dean complains, and decides to do his bills in the car while they 'flutter about with the fish.'

"Have you ever fished before?" Dean asks, as Seamus stares dubiously at the fishing line.

"Mam's a witch, me da's a banker, and I'd read all of _Hogwarts, a History_ before I was nine," says Seamus. "Do you think I've fished?"

"Bankers fish, too," says Dean. "Fishing's cool."

"The idea of touching a live fish is kind of making me want to run and help your da with the bills," says Seamus. "Do I have to take it off the hook and everything? I'll scream, I swear to God."

Dean laughs and starts the engine of the boat. The air is warm without being oppressing, and once the boat is moving there is a nice breeze. Seamus wonders for a moment if he's the type to get seasick, his only previous experience with a boat having been in first year at Hogwarts, but he does not seem to be in any danger and so he instead focusses his attention on trying to figure out how his fishing pole works. He is going to rip his line in two, he is fairly sure.

Dean stops the boat somewhere near what Seamus is sure must be the centre of the lake, and he shows Seamus how to cast off. And then they sit.

"Is fishing always this exciting?" Seamus asks, after fifteen minutes or so have passed in silence.

"It's a lot of waiting," says Dean, "but when you get a fish, it's brilliant."

"I'll keep that in mind."

There is a family on the side of the lake, two girls and their parents, the girls running into the water and shrieking at how cold it is before they run back out immediately. Seamus wonders if they are related to any Muggle-born witches or wizards, if You-Know-Who ever took it upon himself to visit their cousins or great-aunts. Probably not, he thinks, and he feels stupid for thinking it at all. His world has affected this one in smaller ways than he thought. He has imagined Muggles piled in great bloody stacks of bodies on the sides of roads. He has imagined all of Great Britain in a permanent state of Hell. He has imagined that You-Know-Who was more important than he ever actually was.

Dean leans over and kisses Seamus on the neck, where it meets his ear. "Stop dwelling," he says. "You're being quiet lately."

"I'm always quiet," Seamus says.

"Not usually around me," says Dean. "It's over, you know, but it can't really be if you act like it's not."

Seamus considers this. "I'm just thrown off. We've gone from one extreme to another, I think, and it's, I don't know, it feels wrong. Sort of like there should've been a better transition, or a moment of silence, or something. Well, not quite that maudlin, but it's just strange."

"Like you expect everyone here to be talking about it, too," says Dean. "Sometimes I would get like that at Hogwarts, kind of expecting Adam to be into Quidditch and so on, but they're different worlds, really. The best part is you can leave the crap parts behind you when you go from one to the other."

"I suppose."

Another ten minutes go by, and the only thing on Seamus's line is water. He props his pole on the side of the boat and digs in his knapsack for a book. Dean makes a noise of disgust and grabs the book from him.

"What's all this about Stubby Boardman? What are you reading this for?" He waves the biography around Seamus's face like an annoying bug.

"Why? Jealous?" Seamus snatches it back and puts his bookmark neatly aside.

"Just worried you're going to start reading rubbish all the time. I'm never jealous."

Seamus lets this go for a few minutes. He tries very hard, in fact, to say nothing, but he is unable to read or resist. "Even when everyone thought Ron's stick figure Snape was the best thing they ever saw?"

Dean frowns. "Okay, then, but Ron draws for crap. Ten years of drawing and no one's putting my paintings in the dorm, but Ron draws Snape and there's talk of replacing the Fat Lady." His face clouds over in bitter recollection.

"Then there was the time you thought I fancied your stepsister," Seamus says lightly. "Because we agreed that you looked bad in that giant yellow coat -"

"I don't think you have a thing for Jiffy!" Dean says.

"- which everyone else just wasn't telling you."

"Although if you keep bringing up the coat, I might. Clinging to the one conversation you've had with her, are you?"

"She's a married woman, and Keith is a great man," Seamus says. "Besides that, she doesn't have the proper equipment."

"The coat was cool."

"You keep on telling yourself that."

Dean kicks Seamus in the ankle, knocking Seamus's pole into the water. Seamus laughs as Dean grabs frantically over the edge of the boat for it, knocking his own pole overboard in the process.

"You could help, you twat," Dean says, dangerously close to falling overboard himself.

Seamus replaces his bookmark and reaches delicately for Dean's pole, which is clacking against the side of the boat with the waves Dean is making as he makes for Seamus's pole. The water is colder than Seamus expects, but Dean's pole is in reach and he puts it back into the boat.

And then Seamus is in the lake, freezing and shocked with water flowing up his nose. It takes him a moment to realise what has happened, and he squawks indignantly when he breaks the surface. Dean is laughing in the boat, holding both fishing poles and looking quite comfortable. Seamus slaps his hand against the water, sending a spray at Dean's smug face.

"The coat was cool," Dean says again.

"Now me clothes are wet," says Seamus, treading water. "This jumper is wool! It'll shrink."

"You'll have other jumpers," Dean says, and he moves to the other side of the boat when Seamus climbs back in. "Get over it."

Seamus laughs and kisses him, dripping water all over Dean's lap and not caring. It is not the end of the world, but for a moment it felt like it. It is good to feel that falling in a lake is the end of the world. They don't catch any fish, and Seamus is forced to sit in the very back of the van on a load of towels on the way home so the seats won't be ruined. Seamus smells rancid the entire way home. His trousers dry stiff and awkward, and his jumper shrinks. Life goes on.


End file.
